Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.
One never comes into embarrassment, if one is ready to balance. To ask oneself never in embarrassment, what have you in these decades made.
Belief in oneself is incredibly infectious. It generates momentum, the collective force of which far outweighs any kernel of self-doubt that may creep in.
My painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.
There is only one instrument which is adequate to investigate the things of the spirit, and that is the Spirit itself. Just as it is necessary to train a man for scientific research in the physical world, so also is a long and slow process required to fit oneself for investigation of the spiritual world.
The frontiers of knowledge in the various fields of our subject are expanding at such a rate that, work as hard as one can, one finds oneself further and further away from an understanding of the whole.
Fashion in the past meant conforming and losing oneself. Fashion in the present means being individual and finding oneself.
Never say never, but the thought of electively cutting oneself is beyond my grasp, and I also object to it politically. Denying the lines on our faces makes a comment about age and wisdom I don't care to make.
It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.
To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.
And there isn't any way that one can get rid of the guilt of having a nice body by saying that one can serve society with it, because that would end up with oneself as what? There simply doesn't seem to be any moral place for flesh.
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life.
What one does in the studio is to pose a series of problems to oneself. I've got to look for some deeper meaning, for some reason for this thing to be in the world. There's enough stuff in the world.
I have that precious commodity - freedom. I can live my life a day at a time, and I am open to whatever the next day brings. I know I sound as if I have been off with some guru in India, but I haven't. I've come to realise the value of being able to decide for oneself.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Every writer uses his own way to motivate oneself.
Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.
But generally speaking, I felt to engage in the political process was to sully oneself to such a degree that whatever came out wasn't worth the trouble put in.
In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction.
Testing oneself is best when done alone.
Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.
I may attempt a novel. I think that no matter what you write, it requires being honest with oneself, and you have to pull yourself out of the whirlwind of daily life.
A value is valuable when the value of value is valuable to oneself.
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.
There are two 'faiths' which can uphold humans: faith in God and faith in oneself. And these two faiths should exist side by side: the first belongs to one's inner life, the second to one's life in society.
One must not believe any of those mythologies about oneself as an artist.
What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.
An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
But what is the greatest evil? If you are going to epitomize evil, what is it? Is it the bomb? The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worse part of oneself.
What I do know from my life is the phenomenon of saying, 'This is too small a thing to argue about', but then nevertheless finding oneself in that argument.
Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
